


We the dead

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [68]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hozier, Not Fluff, One Shot, but not angst either, kastle - Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 10:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10874580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw"





	We the dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evil_bunny_king](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/gifts).



> This kinda ran away from me

When he told her the plan, she had, for a good minute there, thought he had lost his mind.

But then everything started going to shit. She had to duck, run, shoot, hide, be quiet, she was bleeding, and she understood. It had to end. And she had to die for it to happen.

Officially, Karen had died. So had Frank. Drowned, shot, tortured, who knows. The last news on her were that she had been taken by the Italian mafia. Nobody was really expecting to find her body, not after the things she had written.

Frank Castle died with her because his name was involved. Indirectly, they were careful about that, but he was both after the Italians and running from the Italians, so it was not very difficult to put his name in the dead list.

He had gotten to her place almost 24 hours ago, asking her to hear him out. She was used to him being over protective of her, forever apologising with actions for using her as bait that one time.

This time, he asked her to let herself be captured. And Karen really did think he was crazy.

But then he explained. Promised he would be there, he would not take his eyes off her, not for one minute. But in order for this to be finished, this underground bounty on her head and the sheer reign of terror the family from Sicily was building, he had to have a way in. And she was it.

Karen from Vermont would never agree to something like that. Karen from New York did, paraded herself for two hours at the last place she should ever be, let herself be followed home, let herself be captured, didn’t put up much of a fight, prayed that Frank was there, behind her, like he promised.

He doesn’t lie to her. And he didn’t. As promised, he got to her right before she got a violent slap to her face, a shot to her head, God knows what else. Suddenly there was someone else’s blood on her skin, her clothes, her face. Frank was there, putting a gun in her hand, shooting a thousand bullets per second, pulling her through a door she never noticed was there, running towards a car, pressing a button, starting the engine at the same time an explosion blew behind them, driving away and she could not believe she didn’t have a scratch on her. Maybe her arms would be bruised from when they grabbed her at her apartment, but that was it.

Frank drove for hours. Three, four, maybe five. Maybe less than that. It didn’t occur to her to ask where they were going. She focused on breathing and looked at the night sky, the lights of the city fading behind them.

When he parked outside a house hidden in the middle of the woods, she saw Max looking out the front window, his excited breathing fogging up the glass.

“I got your suitcase”, Frank said after killing the engine. “It’s in your bedroom.”

“My bedroom?”

He nodded.

“The one you’re gonna occupy while we’re here”. He looked outside the car towards the two story house. “It’s the nice one.”

“What is this place, Frank?”

He looked at her and she didn’t know what to feel. Tired, scared, relieved, angry, sad, what? She was all of those things and a few more she couldn’t name.

He just shrugged.

“Belonged to a friend. Come on.”

He collected the bag of weapons he had put in the trunk and they made their way inside. The bag with her clothes and basic belongings and his were already there, he had brought them the day before, along with Max.

Karen let him look at her, looking for bruises, didn’t complain when he fussed over the simplest of scrapes, putting a bandage over it. She let him apply medicine to the one on her forehead she hadn’t noticed, let him examine the ones of her arms, answered all his questions of “does it hurt?”

They had microwaved frozen meals for dinner and she announced that she was going to bed after swallowing maybe a third of it.

He was right, her room was nice. Big bed and curtains on the windows and her own en suite bathroom. There was even a desk where her computer sat.  

It was one in the morning when she decided she was not going to be able to sleep.

Making her silent way downstairs, she spotted a blanket folded over the couch. Picking it up, she opened the front door and walked until she was halfway between the house and the edge of the woods.

She had been staring at the stars in the sky for maybe twenty minutes when he sat down next to her, and then lied down.

Karen waited for him to say something. To apologise again. He didn’t. Just looked at the sky and there they stayed.

When she opened her eyes again, the blue of the sky was not so dark. Dawn was threatening to break and she let herself cry, silently, tear after tear rolling down ter temples towards the blanket under them.

She was dead. They were dead.

She could feel herself calming down when his arm started moving slowly towards her and he pulled her to him.

“Did you tell someone?” she asked, voice small.

He took a second and then answered her, soft and slow.

“Red. And Micro.”

She sighed in relief. At least someone knew she was alive.

“Who’s Micro?”

“Associate of mine.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes.”

She fell asleep again after that, inside his arms, feeling safe.

.:.

Matt called once, that afternoon, voice tortured and sighing when she answered.

He asked all the questions. Was she ok? Was she hurt? Did she need anything? Promised he would help with this fucked up situation, promised to do his best.

Asked if she wanted to go back home.

Frank sat on a chair by her side, elbows on his knees, head down, cracking his knuckles, waiting for her to finish. Max sat in front of her chair, sweet round eyes looking at her and she reached a hand to caress his face.

“No. I’m ok.”

.:.

Frank spent a lot of time talking on that strange looking phone. Satellite phone, she realized. From what she could hear, he was giving orders, asking for status, giving more orders, adjusting plans.

Other than that, she was not allowed to log into her email or any other account.

“Don’t worry, they’ll all be there for you when we go back. Micro is taking care of it.”

All she could do in her computer was check the news and try to distract herself.

.:.

After just two days, she had cabin fever. And Frank was the one feeling it’s effects.

“Wanna to go for a drive?” he offered after she used too much force to throw the ball for Max, grunting, and the pitbull ran towards the trees after it. “Maybe pick up some stuff to eat.”

She realized what he was doing. And she wanted to snap at him, tell him not to treat her like a child. Instead, she got up and said “yes”, rolling her eyes as he sighed and bent to put his boots on.

They found a farmer’s market on the way. She had never, in her life, enjoyed a farmer’s market. When her mother forced her to go when she was younger, after church, she would complain the whole way. Today, it felt like the gates of heaven.

“Karen”, he said, using that voice she imagined he used when he was bossing people around in the army, when she asked him to stop the car.

“Don’t ‘Karen’ me. Come on”, she said, putting the leash on Max’s collar. “It’s just a bunch of old ladies.”

It wasn’t. But she enjoyed talking to people, buying stuff she doesn’t usually buy, like half a pound of cherries and a dozen donuts.

She held Max’s leash, who walked by her side and stopped when she wanted to stop, not complaining, just looking behind them here and there to make sure Frank was still there.

She was paying for apples when the lady giving her her change asked if Max wanted some water.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much.”

“No problem, dear.”

She filled a bowl and Max lapped it up happily.

“I have one, myself. Well, actually he’s my husband’s. He’s like yours.”

At first, Karen thought she meant her dog was like Max, but she motioned with her head and Karen looked behind her to see Frank, wearing his sunglasses and hoodie over a beanie.

(He looked good, a part of her brain noticed. Really good.)

“Only Charles does not look like that anymore”, the lady whispered, humor in her voice. “Military?” she asked, already nodding, a small smile.

“Uh, yeah”, Karen answered.

“Mine, too. After forty years, you learn to recognize them just by the way they walk and stand.”

Max finished his water, Karen thanked the lady and then walked back to Frank, saying that they could go.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

.:.

Two nights later, she was crying on the porch, thinking he had gone to bed already, but he opened the door and crouched in front of her.

“What is it?” he asked, careful, distant and present at the same time.

She tried to wipe her tears  away, tell him it was nothing, but he insisted, and insisted, and she told him she felt strange, knowing the world was going on without her.

“I’m…” she started, sighing, annoyed with herself. “I’m dead, and it seems to make zero difference.”

It was his turn to sigh, getting up, asking her to move, to make way for him.

He sat with one leg bent against the back of the bench, a foot on the seat, and made her sit with her back against his chest, his arms coming around her.

She thought he was going to hug her, but suddenly there was a gun in his left hand, and he was placing it on hers.

Before she knew what was happening, she was holding his gun and he was making her point it towards the trees.

“Do you see the thick one, a little behind?”

“What-”

“Do you see it?”

Confused, Karen looked and spotted the tree he was talking about. It was taller and thicker than the others around it.

“Yes.”

His thumb clicked the safety off and he cocked the gun, his finger guiding her own to the trigger.

“Come on.”

She blinked, not understanding why he wanted her to shoot a tree, a wild thought that there was someone hiding there and he was making her kill them crossing her mind, but vanishing when she realized his mouth was there by her ear. She could feel his breath, his chest rising and falling slowly against her back.

“Ma’am. Pull the trigger.”

Swallowing once, she did. And she felt so good after the shot echoed and she spotted the bullet mark on the bark of the tree, she did it again without prompting. And again. And again, again until the gun clicked empty.

Silently, Frank pulled a full magazine from his pocket and placed it in her hand. Karen changed it, letting him take the empty one, clicking it in place and cocking the gun herself, shooting again and again until there was a faint ringing in her ear.

She felt incredibly better. Her hands were vibrating, her heart was pounding and she felt she wanted to smile.

“Better?” Frank asked after she lowered the weapon. She nodded.

Getting the gun from her, he placed it on the floor near his foot.

“The world didn’t stop because you didn’t really die”, he said, picking her chin and turning her face to his. “If you did, everybody else would die with you.”

She had time to recognize a different quality in his voice before he put his lips on hers. He didn’t whisper, but his words were low, meant only for her, and she was close enough.

Or at least she thought she was.

She had always, somehow, known he would be a good kisser. And that he would, eventually, kiss her. The effects his mouth had on her, though, were a bit of a pleasant surprise. It was a natural thing, felt right and organic, but also an addicting one. The more she did it, the more she discovered, lips and teeth and tongues, the more she wanted, the more she craved, the more she needed.

Karen turned around and Frank latched onto her neck, hands gripping at her, the intensity of him making her shiver, her own hands grabbing at him when he slid his hands from her waist to grab at her ass, getting up, her legs instinctively going around his hips, mouth looking for his again,God, it felt like breathing.

Frank stripped her with his hands and covered her body with his mouth. The look in his face when he lifted it to look at her made her feel warm inside, but not the cozy kind. Warm like there was a fire starting in the pit of her stomach, spreading up her spine and through her limbs, making her skin ignite and she felt like she could conduct electricity, shock him the next time he touched her.

It didn’t happen. Frank lowered his face again and she ran her hands on the skin revealed by his shirt.

She was focusing on the feeling of his hands on her when he rolled them over, and she moved to sit on top of him, straddling his lap, no teasing, it was not about that, it was just about them, getting and giving, everything.

He tugged at the hem of her sweater and she removed it, watching as he watched, feeling powerful and beautiful, but cold without him pressed up against her.

Karen tugged on his wrist and he sat up, an arm around her waist, his tongue on her neck, teeth scraping skin, breathing intense and palm heavy. He held her firmly and she reveled in it, in his strength, how he didn’t touch her as if she was made of paper.

She forgot she had been crying, remembering only when he lied down again, after bringing two hands to her face and wiping the dried up tears from her cheeks, and she turned her face towards his palm.

Frank was on top of her again, her legs were up and around him, arms too, her back was arched and she was feeling so good, the world falling silent around them, moving slow, all she could see was him, all she could feel was him, all she wanted was him.

Karen and Frank needed to die in order to feel alive again.

.:.

It had been a week when his phone made itself known one more time.

Her computer had been off for days and all she wore were his shirts, not because she felt comfortable in them (which she did, but her own clothes were also efficient in that department), but because she liked the way he looked at her when she did. Watching her with precision, focused, chasing the movement of her legs with his eyes, unmasked, unguarded, no Punisher, just Frank.

She was wearing one of his hoodies, the grey one he loved to throw over his bare chest, perched on the kitchen island with her legs around him when the satellite phone beeped in his pocket.

Sighing, he picked it up, but kept scanning her with his eyes, and she brought her hands to his face, the tip of her fingers caressing his jaw, the contour of his nose, ghosting over his lips.

Damn it. She was in love with him.

She has heard some people describing that feeling as heavy. “The weight of realization”. To her, it felt the opposite. She felt like she would float away if he wasn’t holding her down.

“Yeah. Fine. Thanks, man. I’ll call back later.”

Hanging up, he drew a deep breath and leaned in to kiss her, sweet and gentle and… Devoted.

“It’s been a week”, he said, forehead touching hers. “We have to go back.”

It was her turn to sigh and cast a quick look around, to this mysterious house in the middle of nowhere, where she already felt so at home.

“I don’t want to”, she admitted, lacing her fingers on the back of his neck, kissing his forehead and he held her to him, chest to chest, tight and sweet.

“Yeah”, he said. “Me neither.”

“Can’t we stay?”

Lifting his head from her neck, he gave her a teasing look.

“Weren’t you crying over your own death just the other day?”

She smiled, pinching his side, making him squirm, smile, and she wanted to make him smile everyday, take him away from his demons, for good.

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

She kissed him once, open mouth and sliding tongue, and leaned back, back, his hands sliding from her back around her waist, lifting the hoodie, exploring, warm and heavy, she loved that pressure.

“Before you”, she said, laying down on the marble counter, arching her back, letting him lower the zipper, knowing his eyes were doing a sweep of her, reveling in it. “Before us.”

He grunted and he moaned and she breathed deep, lost in the feeling of him, sitting back up to hold him, unable to resist the allure of his mouth on hers for too long.

“I want to stay”, she told him again, hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating.

Alive. Both of them.

His burner vibrated in his pocket. The world called.

But they wanted to stay.


End file.
